Recipe for sausages baked on a nest of cannellini beans, hot smoked garlic and bacon

There are two ways of smoking food – hot smoking and cold smoking. The difference between them is that hot smoking cooks and smokes the food whilst cold smoking just smokes the food. In the case of garlic, cold smoking preserves the garlic and adds a subtle smoked flavour. Hot smoked garlic is soft and quite delicious – it needs to be vacuum packed to last more than just a few days.

Hot smoked garlic has a much milder flavour than ordinary garlic and a wonderful, deep and smoky taste. It’s excellent spread on a piece of toast as an appetiser or snack but we prefer to add hot smoked garlic to soup, a sauce or a baked dish to give an extra dimension of sultry flavour.

This is why we added a head to our favourite comfort food – sausage and cannellini beans. This dish is great at the best of times but the hot smoked garlic lifted it to a divine plate licking level.

Do try this recipe. You won’t be disappointed. It’s very filling and quick to prepare – even Danny doesn’t want potatoes with this dish.

N.B. If you can’t get hot smoked garlic DON’T put a whole head of ordinary garlic under the sausages as it will not cook through in time. Rather bake it seperately using this recipe, adding a large pinch of smoked papricka. Add the baked garlic and juices to the sausages and beans before serving.

Recipe for sausages baked on a nest of cannellini beans, hot smoked garlic and bacon

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Recipe Type: Main

Author: Fiona Nevile

Prep time: 5 mins

Cook time: 45 mins

Total time: 50 mins

Serves: 2

This recipe feeds two very greedy people

Ingredients

4-6 good sausages (depending how hungry you are)

1 x 400g (14 oz) tin of cannellini beans

2 or 3 tinned whole plum tomatoes (fresh toms just don’t work so well). Squeeze these gently so as not to ad too much tomato juice. (The rest of the tin can be tossed into soup or frozen to add to a casserole).

4 slices of streaky bacon or back bacon cut into chunky sqaures

A good dash of *chilli sherry – very easy to make see above. If you haven’t yet made this essential ingredient a small pinch of chilli powder would do in an emergency

1 whole head of hot smoked garlic

Instructions

Drain the cannellini beans (do not rinse) and arrange them in the base of an oven proof dish.

Add the tinned tomatoes

Add the chilli sherry and stir well

Put the garlic head in the centre of the dish

Place the sausages on top of the bean mixture – covering the head of garlic and arrange the streaky bacon over the exposed beans

Baked the dish at 200c or 190 fan for 25 minutes then turn over the sausages and bake for a further 20 minutes

Before serving on warm plates, divide the head of garlic into two and stir the beans well

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